Therefore what's a cryptocurrency? A cryptocurrency is a decentralised payment process, which ostensibly allows persons deliver currency together over the internet without the necessity for a reliable 3rd party such as a bank or economic institution. The transactions are cheap, and oftentimes, they're free. And also, the payments are pseudo private as well.

Along with that, the key feature is that it's totally decentralised, meaning there's no central point of authority or such a thing like that. The implications of this is performed by every one having the full copy of all transactions that have ever happened with Bitcoin. That produces a remarkably tough system, meaning there is no-one to modify or opposite or authorities any of the transactions.

The high level of anonymity within implies that it's quite difficult to trace transactions. It's not entirely impossible, but it's impractical in most cases. So crime with cryptocurrency-- since you've got quickly, borderless transactions,

and you've got a advanced level of anonymity, it in theory produces a system that's ripe for exploitation. Therefore typically when it's a crime on line with online cost techniques,

then they tend to visit the authorities and, state, we can hand over this cost information or we can end these transactions and opposite them. And none of that will occur with Bitcoin, therefore it causes it to be ready for criminals, in theory.

In gentle of this, plenty of various agencies are exploring into Bitcoin and taking a look at Bitcoin and attempting to know the way it performs and what they can do to police it. It's also been in the media quite a few times,

and the press, being the media, like focus on the bad part of it. So they focus really seriously on the offense with it. So if there's a theft or a fraud or anything that way, chances are they tend to responsibility it on Bitcoin and Bitcoin users.

Therefore the absolute most significant might be Cotton Path, which got taken down lately, and through their $1.2 million value of Bitcoins, gone to pay for any such thing from medications to guns to hit guys to these sorts of things. And the press, again, rapidly to blame this on Bitcoins and claim that it was the Bitcoin user's fault.

But there's really very little evidence of the scale of the situation of crime with cryptocurrencies. We don't know if there's a great deal or we don't know if there's a little. But despite this, persons are very rapid to manufacturer it as a criminal thing, and they your investment legitimate uses, including the rapidly and fast payment.

So several research issues I'michael looking at in this area is what does offense with Bitcoin seem like? So a lot of persons may say that scams and thefts have already been planning on for ages. However the suggests through that they occur improvements with the technology. So a Victorian street swindler might virtually be doing anything very dissimilar to a 419 Nigerian king scammer.

So another question that I'd like to how to unlock your bitcoin private keys as well is taking a look at the degree of the situation of offense with cryptocurrency. Therefore by generating a wood of known scams and thefts and things such as that,

we may then combination research that with the general public deal wood of most transactions and see the amount of of the transactions are in fact illegal and criminal. So my final issue would be, from what degree does the technology itself actually facilitate crime? By seeking right back at the crime records,